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Coastin’ Right Along

Sung to the song Movin’ Right Along from The Muppet Movie:

Coastin’ right along
in search of good wines and good brews,
With good friends you can’t lose,
This could become a habit!
Condensation drips and drinks do slip –
Yeah!
Together we’ll nip it!
We’ll stop watermarks or coaster trips!
Coaster trips?
Just forget it.

This particular craft was in the making for about a decade. Yes: a decade. I know my mind, and my mind works in mysterious ways – and sometimes several disparate ideas will suddenly collide in my gray matter to form a wholly unexpected idea.

The three thoughts that were percolating in my head when I came up with this coaster idea were:

1. I really need to do something with these Muppet Show dominoes I’ve had for almost a decade. It’s so sad that they’re just left in their tin.

2. Poor Bruce! Every time he has a cold drink, our coasters stick to the bottom of the glass and then release when the cup’s halfway to his mouth and the coaster and cold water from the condensation ends up in his lap.

3. I bought a copy of Mark Montano’s Big-Ass Book of Craftsseveral years ago. There’s a section in there about using dominoes as office supplies (but no mention of coasters). I filed that idea away because knew that I didn’t need any office supplies so I should save my limited Muppet dominoes for something else.

It’s one of the most simple instant-gratification crafts that I’ve done in a long time (I’m good at overcomplicating things). Basically, I laid out the tiles how I wanted them, both looking at the pattern of the tiles themselves as well as how I wanted the characters to match-up. I then took some handy-dandy Loctite and stuck them together. On the back side of each coaster I put a bright red quadrilateralish piece of felt to catch drips (since I knew the coasters weren’t water-tight) as well as protect the wood furniture. I’ve had to re-glue one coaster (on a seam or two) that is used the most, but I generally don’t notice that it’s come apart since the felt holds the pieces together. It’s usually when I’m moving it to dust that I realize that I need to fix it.

Ultimately this has been one of the most unexpectedly fantastic functional crafts that I’ve ever done. The coasters stay in place and can handle the ginormous bottles of sports drinks that Bruce has been known to have. They’re also great surfaces in that you can easily rest a remote or book on them without anything tipping over or sliding off of the table. Plus they’re just bright and cheery and very Muppetey.